Some Fun (and Yumminess) in the Kitchen...

Things are non-ideal in La Casa de Emmo lately, but awesome friends and yummy food are always a great distraction from pain and other badness. My friends Mindy and Joe came by last weekend for dinner and playing-with-chemicals and were the perfect mood-lifter.

Chemistry Adventures: Arugula Noodles

This was a quick and easy little chemistry adventure that ended up being pretty awesome. I saw the recipe over at one of my favorite places to get molecular gastronomy guidance, and instantly knew I had to give it a go.

Chemistry & Cookbook Adventures: Shrimp Mosaic with Avocado-Melon Salsa

As I've mentioned, I'm playing with meat glue these days, but I can't really explain why I made this dish. I had some shrimp. I had some meat glue. I read a recipe in Ideas in Food where you glue a bunch of shrimp together. Seemed like the universe really wanted me to try it. Who am I to blow against the wind?

Chemistry Adventures: Bacon-Wrapped Scallops with Celery Root Cream

This isn't much of a post, I suppose. I made an awesome celery root cream the other day while learning how to perfectly cook scallops. I also made my first-ever home-cured bacon, using meat glue for the first time in the process. The only natural next step was to glue some bacon to some scallops, cook to perfection, then serve with that sauce...

Cookbook & Chemistry Adventures: Homemade Fresh Bacon

I ordered some transglutaminase (aka Meat Glue) a few weeks back, and started to play with it recently. My first experiment with meat glue was the most boring thing you can imagine: gluing two pieces of meat together to make one (bigger) piece of meat. Nonetheless, it was kind of awesome, and prompted me to make my first ever batch of home-cured bacon.

Chemistry Adventures: Make-Ahead Eggs Benedict

As I've probably mentioned countless times before, a well-made Eggs Benedict is one of my favorite meals... Breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner... Any time of day is a good time for Eggs Benedict. The drawback of making this dish is all of the work that has to be done last-minute. The eggs must be perfectly poached. The hollandaise must be made and carefully kept warm (without breaking the sauce and ruining everything...). It's a hassle, and usually leaves the kitchen a mess from all of the last-minute chaos. I thought this was a necessary evil, until I was flipping through one of my new favorite cookbooks and discovered that there is, in fact, a better way...

Emily's Chemistry Adventures: Dressed Up Vodka Tonic

It's a stretch to call this an adventure, since it was super-easy and I knew it would work. My actual chemistry adventure was a bit of a failure due to a misinterpretation of an ingredient... but I'll get to that at the end. First, I had this calcium chloride bath sitting around from last week, so I decided to get some nice fruit juice to spherify. I had no luck finding what I wanted (which was guava), so I grabbed a can of mango nectar at H-Mart and made this fun and simple cocktail:

Emily's Chemistry Adventures: Flourless Chocolate-Hazelnut Cake with Nutella Powder and Frangelico Caviar

I got a big box of chemicals in the mail the other day, and am looking forward to playing with them. My pain issues are making it hard for me to spend 13 hours in the kitchen making fun, elaborate dishes these days, so I thought molecular gastronomy would be a way to keep having fun in the kitchen without spending quite so much time in there. There will probably be a lot of failures to go along with any successes, and I promise to report on both. I'm easing into things by starting with two garnishes for Mini Flourless Chocolate-Hazelnut Cakes.